I think I am an oxymoron
quite different but the same.
Understanding less is more
Subdued, yet can’t be tamed.
I’ll split in two while being whole
ditzy and still brainy.
Make many plans without a goal
be sad while being zany,
Have champagne taste with beery purse
find ugly very pretty.
Feel really blessed that I’m so cursed
quite stupid when I’m witty.
You see, there’s more than one of me
sometimes I’m up when down.
Politely rude when wrong but right
Show then a smiling frown.
Clearly confused, I know I am
more forward than behind.
Get close to you while staying free
be stingy when I’m kind.
Loud silence lets me contemplate
and dream when I’m awake.
To keep in front, I must backdate
my words, just give or take.
Busty shaped and large of hip
the busy winds of October
buffet my brain
within its whistling cave.
Around the shoulders
of every lumpy molehill
taverns and tankards
bloom in a russet corner of light.
September leaves
leave, shaking their brittle cuffs
and frills,
they fly sideways
riding upon broken rafts
of tangled sticks.
October blusters as it bustles,
its wide-spread mouth warmed-over
by wafts and beery blasts.
Now is the time to flap long coats,
to run ahead of a creaking moon
as it rolls drunkenly
into winters nippy
and thin-lipped ice.
The day after I was birthed,
God and a bunch of sassy angels
played Irish fiddles in a beery bordello,
a place not yet colorized into reality.
The next day,
squealing in my two-day-old
tight Rubenesque pinkness,
I was immortalized in a Brownie Box Camera,
the guys in the men's room
pissed themselves with a teary laughter.
On the third day of my fleshy ascension
a thin women said she was going to love me
for a little while only.
I took the deal.
So many days have fallen away now.
Sex saturated, love begotten, a damaged
dance of a life,
but there was always wine.
An old, white-beaded gent,
has bequeathed me two holy relics,
iconic images of Santa,
and Michealangelo's painted finger,
when I hold them up to the light
I can almost see through them.
Sitting upside down in the car
On its roof and well concealed
By the hedge it just leapt to
Land upside down in this field
The lesson being learned
When going round a bend
Trying to pick up a ciggie
Can cause unfortunate end
It seemed all quite peaceful
In an ending somehow right
To what had been a memorable
And very worthy Stag Night.
Deciding to respond to
The penetrating shout
Of are you all alright
We decided to climb out.
Good Lord but I’m chuffed
This beery voice said
I saw you jump the hedge
And I though you were dead.
We stood around a while
For a laugh and a joke
Each one of us enjoying
A much needed smoke.
Can I give you a lift he said
It’s the least I can do
I can’t wait for the police
‘Cos I’ve been drinking too.
A country road mid 1960’s
A cold and bitter night
Isolated and deserted and
Not a person or house in sight.
So he drove us back to Bert’s place
Which wasn’t really very far
And Bert had to wake and tell his dad
That he’d gone and crashed his car.
A good solid early1960’s model
And although we got a bad fright
I think that’s what helped us all survive
The rigours and vigours of Bert’s Stag Night
Blow down the snozzle
this windy wild world
is nowt but a hornswoggle.
Giddy are the blue birds
in head and heart,
blithered are the bush-beating
snit-shifters.
A good day to die and live again,
a day for tripping a bright bombastic.
A yet better day
for some nonsensical boggle
that wags words in a
beery muddle.
Fluffy are the puffy footloose
that skip well over a plushy clover,
great the laughter of children
that dance in the minding eye
of an everlasting God today.
I dig a spur of the moment
into the feral flanks of a rocking horse.
I belong to the stars
and the wide-open anywhere.
My heart belongs to Molly Maguire
a colleen from the low bog country.
No wait, this is a dream sequence
brewed to overflow at 3 in the morning.
The beery light is turning sour
as I check my watch for tics.
My problem is to many cookies
not the edible kind
the kind that clog up a computer
or a brain (same thing really).
When I struggle out of this muddled bed
I am going to get myself a deep scan,
clean up some dirty memories
so that I can plug into a sharper faster reality.
Might even rewrite this poem
into a clearer form of gibberish,
but will probably be too busy today
downloading a spinal cord
into my aching
and malfunctioning mainframe.
Sitting upside down in the car
On its roof and well concealed
By the hedge it just leapt to
Land upside down in this field
The lesson being learned,
When going round a bend
Trying to pick up a ciggie
Can cause unfortunate end.
It seemed all quite peaceful
In an ending somehow right
To what had been a memorable
And very worthy long Stag Night.
Deciding to respond to
The penetrating shout
Of are you all alright
We decided to climb out.
Good Lord but I’m chuffed
This beery voice said
I saw you jump the hedge
And I though you were dead.
We stood around a while
For a laugh and a joke
Each one of us enjoying
A much needed smoke.
Can I give you a lift he said
It’s the least I can do
I can’t wait for the police
‘Cos I’ve been drinking too.
A country road mid 1960’s
A cold and bitter night
Isolated and deserted and
Not a person or house in sight.
No such things as mobile phones,
No real need for the police to know
So by mutual consent we decided
It was a good time as any for us to go,
So he drove us back to Bert’s place
Which wasn’t really very far
And Bert had to wake and tell his dad
That he’d gone and crashed his car.
What a stupid situation
Twenty foot above the ground
But when I reach the bottom
I’m nearly half way round
It was Ronnie Hatchard said it
Hey boys lets have some fun
Go back to camp and do
The assault course run
Nobody had the senses
To say stupid idea
Just picked up his glass
And finished off his beer
And now it’s after midnight
And it’s cold and it’s dark
And what seemed like such fun
Now just aint much of a lark
There’s somebody up above me
And I think he feels the same
He’s steadily pouring curses on
Old Ronnie Hatchard’s name
My stomach’s feeling queasy
There’s a pounding in my head
Instead of hanging here
I should be in my bed
But I bet when we finish
There’ll be no beery stagger
Just a walk to the billet
Full of pride and swagger
With Old Ronnie Hatchard
Man of the day
Sure as night is night
Proudly leading the way
In a London pub fingers idly play with place mats.
Wonder-lust had led them back to where they assumed they had first met.
She recalled a local vicinity a basement rathskeller, he a country Inn;
cork mats slid under wet rings.
"Do you remember meeting me at all?"
He had to readjust himself into a time and zone that once existed
in her reality but could not locate that shared location.
After much hazy thought, he replied:
There were a lot of people, you were one in a crowd. I felt your hand
in mine, and that was the beginning.
We backpacked around Europe then I led you back
to this packed tavern where place mats
are soaked in the beery residue of uncertain endings.
I brag of being in the garden, jogging there each day,
It swings a haptic brunt on both, form and the prey.
My scrutiny was utterly borne by a sparkle to glow,
The delight arose to be shouting to my show.
Everyone, whatever of gains, merits to be beery.
Lovers to bear what they envy and admit their beauty.
Never yield up and learn how to rise after a wreck.
Mingle in public areas, the globe is your issue trek.
Never dash a soul; words have power to vary and harm.
Show a smirk to all faces, aid those in need of psalm.
By pursuing your lust, you may risk a life of dream.
You relish one life; savor before it melts as ice cream.
Build abiding minds and live a joyful life graciously.
Till that day nears, we all can rest at night quietly.
Written: March 15, 2022
Living Light Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
At lunch
A hunch
An idea
Drink beer
Bad choice
Beery voice
Spinning head
Need bed
Got undressed
Feeling stressed
Seeing double
Big trouble
Next morning
No warning
Hangover disappeared
I cheered
Apart from the worn stone-step
where drunks still topple
all has changed.
Now a neon glow backlights a plasticized fascia.
In the in the parking lot two blonds face-off.
one has extra-large ear bangles,
and she rattles like a Zulu warrior,
fingers stabbing through cuss-words.
Youths shout
over the clomping-thump
of their car radios.
I used to come here often
I explain to my incredulous wife.
“Good times”, I say unconvincingly.
She won't go in, but I have to pee.
Inside there’s a blaze of corporate ersatz.
In the cramped `gents’,
a die-hard seediness persist.
There’s an old-time essence
of Borax and Vanish..
A condom dispenser (a peeling relic),
links me to a few beery memories.
Fishwives
In junkets to
the golden shore
Beside the cobalt
sea of lore
Was told of dwellings
and rapscallions
Of ramshackled wood
and galleons.
Where ancient mariners
and the breeze
Sailed upon
the unknown seas,
Where wives and fish,
in nets, were caught,
And the spoils of labour
sold and bought,
And 'neath the starry skies
would sing
Of trawlers and
the nets they'd fling,
Starboard bow
and guillemot peck
The flapping herring
upon oily deck.
Where wives and fish,
of griddle and broth
Spit and cuss
in their beery froth,
And carving ships
in dry whalebone
The men, of gods
and serpents, moan.
By dark, by habit,
by candle lit
Gather in separate
huddles, sit,
Weary lines upon
a salty thread
Weave and knot
their minds to bed.
To dream of junkets
to a golden shore
Where told of dwellings
that are no more,
Where supper served
in a driftwood dish
Would taste as sweet
as wives and fish.
Mermaid Fascination
Put a sea-shell to your ear and hear
the storm that blew and the call from
the mermaid you met when wading
along the shores of Peru.
The tail thing is a myth because I met
her late in the evening in a pink room
perfumed to cover for the odour of
beery men, who live in dread of dentists.
She was glad to see me and I seeing
her, although not at this place, yet she
took an hour off her busy schedule and
we made love without haste.
and I remember the pilled-doctor
rolling by, rolling by, and the beery
priest, in the sky, in the sky
and the woman in the taxi, oh my,
oh my, and her husband the pugilist,
big guy, big guy
and the lamp-posted street and the
beery priest and his altared feet,
all rolling by, rolling by
and the maggots in the trash can
meal long gone, meal long gone
and the yellow kitchen dish
squissh, squish,squish buttered
frying fish,buttered frying fish
and the black, smiling police woman,
come to bed, come to bed;
and the little bouncing snappy dog, bounce
the ball, bounce the ball
then the man in robes from Pakistan,
Pakistan, all the sights, if you can,
if you can;
and now I'm old, now I'm old,
with silver hair and linen shirts
and children three in pants and
skirts.
and if at night I stop and stare,
stop and stare;
I see who I was;
living there.
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